price dropping

[snakesRkewl]

If you breed quality you will sell snakes at a fair price.

Too many people are breeding "average at best" quality stuff and then they complain they have a problem selling their stuff at the "normal" market price
I believe If your not looking to buy the best example of the morph to breed then you just shouldn't be breeding.
I consistently see people buying the cheapest snake they can find, wanting to breed it to any ole normal they already have, just to make babies.

It seems that many to most people who jump into breeding do so with little or no clue what selective breeding entails, so they end up with snakes that don't create a high demand due to their mediocrity.

[JohnNJ]

If you breed quality you will sell snakes at a fair price.

Too many people are breeding "average at best" quality stuff and then they complain they have a problem selling their stuff at the "normal" market price
I believe If your not looking to buy the best example of the morph to breed then you just shouldn't be breeding.
I consistently see people buying the cheapest snake they can find, wanting to breed it to any ole normal they already have, just to make babies.

It seems that many to most people who jump into breeding do so with little or no clue what selective breeding entails, so they end up with snakes that don't create a high demand due to their mediocrity.

And, I'm sorry to say, this is not limited to ball python breeding but happens with other animals as well.

[cmz1234]

If you breed quality you will sell snakes at a fair price.

Too many people are breeding "average at best" quality stuff and then they complain they have a problem selling their stuff at the "normal" market price
I believe If your not looking to buy the best example of the morph to breed then you just shouldn't be breeding.
I consistently see people buying the cheapest snake they can find, wanting to breed it to any ole normal they already have, just to make babies.

It seems that many to most people who jump into breeding do so with little or no clue what selective breeding entails, so they end up with snakes that don't create a high demand due to their mediocrity.

You make a very good point. Which is why I'm going to sell my female red blood python once I get her up to breeding size instead of breeding her. And get me a quality female from Kara, Tim, Tracey/ David, or Keith. I'd really like to buy a blood python from David and Tracy, but I don't have that kind of money yet.

[mainbutter]

Makes you wonder what those of use that paid several thousand dollars for a morph feel when we see them going for a couple of hundred..P.S. my pied is a 2006 male do that math.

Just guesstimating.. about 5 grand for that guy back in the day, right?

I've been trying to track "market prices" of morphs since 2000, and the best trend I can find is that any particular morph or any particular combo seems to drop in price by half every 2 years... again, "roughly", from the numbers I've looked at.

[cmz1234]

Just guesstimating.. about 5 grand for that guy back in the day, right?

I've been trying to track "market prices" of morphs since 2000, and the best trend I can find is that any particular morph or any particular combo seems to drop in price by half every 2 years... again, "roughly", from the numbers I've looked at.

Thanks for sharing. Wish I had those trends for blood python morphs . But I presume it's relatively close, maybe not half because the blood python market isn't very big IMO.

[Trochu]

If you breed quality you will sell snakes at a fair price.

Too many people are breeding "average at best" quality stuff and then they complain they have a problem selling their stuff at the "normal" market price
I believe If your not looking to buy the best example of the morph to breed then you just shouldn't be breeding.
I consistently see people buying the cheapest snake they can find, wanting to breed it to any ole normal they already have, just to make babies.

It seems that many to most people who jump into breeding do so with little or no clue what selective breeding entails, so they end up with snakes that don't create a high demand due to their mediocrity.

Without those people though, the hobby would be very expensive and very exclusive as nobody could afford BP. If all BP were several thousand dollars because they were the "best example of the morph" this forum would be alot smaller and you likely wouldn't have any snakes.

[Royal Hijinx]

I think there is a difference between pride and elitism, but sometimes it can be a very fine line. Pride keeps quality in the hobby, but elitism will alienate the base buyers.

High end breeders cannot perpetuate each other. Got to have the kid that wants a Normal or the guy who wants a pet Mojave (or whatever) and is not looking for the cleanest example of the morph to keep business aloft.

I would be interested to know the general limit for a pet BP. I would say maybe $1200 (just off the top of my head). May be a few outliers that want an especially trophy pet. So, then most anything over $1200 is probably being sold to another breeder, or someone who intends to breed it.

[jdouglas]

As a pet owner, and I do plan to pick up a second snake sometime. I currently have no intentions of breeding, my limit is $400. For certain morphs I would certainly take an average quality example of a certain morph if its what I really wanted.

[stangs13]

I think more than anything young keepers are very important to this hobby. You have to have a base and foundation somewhere. I can tell you, when I started in this hobby at that age I could hold my ground with the best of them.

slacking off somewhere using tapatalk

[snake lab]

I keep hearing people saying that guys that spend so much on an animal got screwed cause they are worth a fraction of the value now. So let me respond from experience as one of those guys. I bought my very first spider in like 2003 for close to 20k from rob at spiderballs.net. that spider was 500 grams. By breeding season i got him up to 850 grams. I bred to 5 females. 3 out of the 5 took. Out of those 3 i got 6.4 spiders. I sold all the males for 15k each and the girls for 18k each. You do the math. Enough said. Look what people have to understand coming into the hobby where combo and triple morphs are common place is that we didnt use to have it like that. The spider when it came out to the public was the big killer morph. This was a time when the holt grail white snake hadnt been produced yet and pieds were over 10k and we didnt have nearly what you see now. We all knew spiders were a single codom morph and knew it would soon start dropping. The key with any animal is get in at the infancy and milk it for all its worth. As soon as everyone gets their hands on an animal the prices drop. It just is what it is. No one should be surprised how quick the spiders dropped. Thos of us working with them at the time knew they would and if you look at todays trends the same is happening on alot of animals. Look at mojaves, caramels, pieds, albinos etc. All dropping. Look at combos like lemon blasts, bumble bees, sterlings etc. All dropping. It doesnt matter what ya do or what ya like they will always drop as long as their is more supply then demand.